


Stupid Ryan Lochte

by smellyleaf



Category: Olympics RPF, Swimming RPF
Genre: Break Up, Christmas, Christmas Fluff, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-31
Updated: 2014-12-31
Packaged: 2018-03-04 14:01:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,597
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3070793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smellyleaf/pseuds/smellyleaf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Michael and Ryan are fighting and Michael is pretty sure it's all Ryan's fault. Maybe.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stupid Ryan Lochte

"Get up," Debbie says, and she jabs him with the long nose of the handheld vacuum cleaner to emphasize it.

It started with egg nog around nine o'clock and sometime around noon turned into beers and whiskey sours. Now his head is pounding and his gray toboggan is pulled low over his eyes so that the lights radiating off that goddamned Christmas tree stop pulsing into his brain.

"Michael, move it!" Debbie jabs him again, and this time the vacuum sucks up a corner of his plaid sleeve.

"Yeah, yeah," He snatches his arm free and wills his legs to work, rising from the low-slung folds of his mother's ranch style couch. His drink, forgotten nearly an hour ago, is all melted ice. He thinks of getting it but the sound of the vacuum is too much, so he just lurches into the kitchen instead.

It's Christmas Eve, and Michael's sisters are due to arrive with their kids any minute. The ingredients for Christmas cookies are all laid out on the counter, awaiting eager little hands to help grandma Debbie prepare them for Santa Claus. Also laid out are the bowls of candy for decorating, and Michael plunges his bare hand into the M&Ms and snags a snack as he passes through on his way to the porch. Grandma Debbie has a strict no-smoking policy. He slips around the back of the pool shed. The M&Ms he eats in one fistful.

"Godammit..." Michael mutters in the dark as he strikes the lighter three, four times. The fifth time it flares up he lifts it to the tip of the cigarette hanging out his lips. And then a puff of smoke blows it out and it's dark again except for the cherry tip.

It's cold as fuck, and something about that just pisses him off even more. He was supposed to be on a South American cruise tour right now, with his feet up on the railing and Ryan Lochte between his legs sucking him dry.

Michael flicks his ash and pulls his phone out, compulsively opening Facebook to stalk Ryan's page again. Late last night he'd posted pictures off the boat along with a couple stupid selfies from some beach and Michael has been stewing in his own little bitterness ever since. Because Ryan has a great tan and one of those ridiculous coconut drinks and fuck him and fuck his coconuts.

Despite these thoughts, Michael goes through each photo's comments for probably the twentieth time that day. A few chicks have commented flirtaciously, and he goes to their profiles to get a bigger look at their profile pictures.

"Stupid bitch," He mutters jealously, glaring at a pretty redhead with pierced lips. Then he backpages furiously back to his News Feed, "Stop obsessing, Phelps. You're obsessing." Flicking his stub of a cigarette down, he kicks dirty snow over the top of it and turns to go inside.

Whitney's husband, Bob, is bent over into the fridge digging for a beer. The clack of the sliding door startles him so that he knocks his head into the top shelf.

"Corona is in the vegetable drawer," Michael tells him, shrugging his coat off. When Bob bends back into the fridge, Michael tosses the coat over the half-empty bottle of whiskey on the counter and bundles the whole package together into a wad under his armpit. Mission accomplished, he heads for the upstairs bathroom.

The only problem is that the router is in his mom's office, so the upstairs bathroom gets the most amazing wifi signal. Michael slides down into the comfortable curve of the porcelain tub and uncaps the whiskey and opens instagram.

Stupid Ryan Lochte. Only a complete fucking moron used stupid hashtags like "goodvibes." Michael's vibes were perfectly fucking good for the record, generally people said he had the greatest vibes there were, so Ryan didn't know shit about it anyway. Stupid Ryan.

God, the likes. Nearly 200 of them. Michael almost clicked, but fuck instagram anyway. Despite this thought, he finds himself opening his personal Facebook. There have been new comments, and new likes, and he finds himself taking a shot every time he opens someone's profile and they are actually attractive.

"Stupid bitch," He says around the mouth of the bottle, except this time he's talking about Ryan, "I hope you choke on some Brazilian dude's coconuts you slut." Okay, maybe he is a little bit drunk. His phone slips from his fingers and clatters between his rib cage and the side of the tub and honestly, he can't be bothered to find it yet.

The whiskey isn't even burning his throat anymore, so he closes his eyes and relaxes, taking the occasional swig. Next thing he knows, his limbs feel heavy and his stomach queasy. The bottle is empty next to him, and he is no longer sure how long he has been laying in the tub but someone is knocking on the door.

"Mikey? Michael? Are you okay? Do you need some Pepto?"

His other sister, Hilary. They are all here, they are all downstairs being normal and enjoying Christmas and here he is, drunk in the bathtub.

"Uh," Michael panicks, his mind is blank and he is desperate not to be found out, "Yes! Please! Flu. Sick." His tongue feels thick and stupid, but maybe she will just figure he's been throwing up. Gripping each side of the tub, he concentrates on pushing himself upright and doesn't even hear Hilary's answer. Whatever she says though, she walks away.

The bathroom spins around him as he stands up, and he promptly pitches forward and vomits into the sink. His mother is going to kill him, he knows it, the puke is brown and smells just like the empty bottle in the tub. He doesn't know what the fuck to do to hide it so instead of trying he lurches for the door, snatching it open and stumbling out into the hall.

Hilary is there, pink bottle in hand, "Hey, I-"

Michael slams the bathroom door shut, "Thanks." He grabs the bottle out of her hands and quickly shuffles down the hall and into his old bedroom, locking the door behind him. 

After tossing the Pepto bottle into the fake plant next to his bookshelf, he collapses on his old bed and shuts his eyes. Of course, he also has to hang one leg off the bed so his foot rests on the floor. The room is spinning.

 

\- - -

 

Christmas morning. Banging footfalls, slamming doors, and the screams of delight from his nieces and nephews as they spot the presents under the tree and the fat stockings. Michael sits up with a groan, his head pounding, and reaches for his phone on the bedside table. But his fingers find only bare wood, because of course his phone is still in the bottom of the tub with the empty whiskey bottle.

"Fuck," He grumbles, and starts to lay back down when a sharp knock pounds on his locked door.

"Michael!" Whitney calls, "Mom says get down here! Kids wanna open presents!"

"Fuuuuuuck...." He repeats, standing up and peeling off his sweaty button-down from the night before and replacing it with a plain white Hanes. His jeans are stained down the front with what looks like puke, so those get replaced as well with a pair of pajama pants from his bag.

Downstairs, everyone else is already sitting around the tree waiting. Michael tries not to look too hungover and guilty as he perches on the arm of Debbie's chair next to the pile of gifts sorted out for him.

"Okay!" Whitney cheers, and the kids shriek with happiness and dig into their boxes and bags. Each cheer and squeal feels like a punch to Michael's eyeballs, and he squints down at his first present, gingerly scratching at the paper.

"Did you puke in my sink, Michael Fred?" Debbie scolds under her breath.

Michael pretends not to hear. Opening the lid of the box in his lap, he finds himself looking down at a red wooly scarf.

"Michael," Whitney says with an awkward half-grimace, "Mom and I put Ryan's presents in the hall closet for you."

Ryan. Michael thinks of him suddenly, probably still asleep on the cruise ship in his Grinch socks and his Santa boxers. "Okay," He says instead, and he looks down at the scarf again and thinks how much he'd like a beer.

The kids fall silent one by one, quickly becoming absorbed in their new games and toys. Debbie slides into the kitchen with Hilary to start whipping up a Christmas brunch and Michael takes the opportunity to pick her phone up and slip outside. The new scarf is stiff and scratchy around his throat but he doesn't really care. Crouching down in the shadows behind the pool shed, he pulls his toboggan low over his eyes and smokes two cigarettes in a row and misses Ryan Lochte.

 

\- - -

 

Stupid Ryan Lochte. The fight had started over nothing, like the worst ones always do. They'd both been having a shitty week, rushing around to get the gifts for their families wrapped and mailed out before their cruise. Michael had been doing all the driving and all the packing. He'd made three calls to their landlord in an equal number of days. Meanwhile, Ryan Lochte just sat around on his ass. On top of that, he smoked a joint in the downstairs bathroom when Michael specifically asked him not to and now the lady he'd hired to water their houseplants and feed their fish over vacation was eyeballing Michael funny every time they passed in the hall.

Their cruise was scheduled to leave the following morning, but Michael wanted to go ahead and leave so that they wouldn't have to drive so much so early. His original plan had been to be out of the house and in a motel room by the dock around noon.

It was something like 3:00. Ryan was still in his sweatpants.

Michael had walked through the living room once, then twice. Ryan was busy playing Dead Rising on the Xbox and he'd paid Michael absolutely no mind.

"Hey, are you ready?" Michael had finally pressed.

"Just a sec," Ryan had muttered in response and kept right on killing zombies. It had been a long day already, he'd been forced to do all the wrapping while Michael wasted two hours on his stupid phone and now he was sitting down for the first time all day and here came Mr. Bossy, ready to go.

For his part, Michael waited way more than a second. He waited probably upwards of fifteen. But Ryan started it, Ryan totally knew how much Michael hated to travel, he knew Michael wanted to be early. He had to know, how could he not know? So, Michael Phelps exploded.

"Whatever, fuck this stupid shit," He'd snapped, and it felt good to be snappy. The holidays had him tense and irritable, and it felt good to channel that negativity out. So he tacked on, "I guess you don't even wanna go."

Ryan had jumped for the bait immediately, "Not if you're gonna nag me the whole trip. I said give me like, five seconds and we can go, Boss." 

"It's not nagging, you're still in your sweatpants and it's past noon."

"So what? We're just going to the hotel. I was just gonna throw on a shirt."

There is a beat of silence. Then Michael went right back to it, "Whatever. Fine. Okay. I guess it doesn't matter since I have to fucking drive and you just get to sit there."

"Do you want me to fucking drive? Is that what you're problem is?"

"No! I can fucking drive!" Michael growls, "My PROBLEM is that you're purposefully doing this-"

"Are you serious right now? Stop being a chick."

And Ryan knows Michael hates that. He knows that saying shit like that pushes all Michael's buttons.

"Fuck you." He says, low and tense. And then he'd pulled the cruise tickets out and thrown them over the back of the couch, "Fuck you and your stupid cruise. Take somebody else."

And then he'd picked Herman up under one arm and grabbed his packed and ready vacation bags. He left the rental car sitting in the driveway and drove his Bentley instead, and when Ryan called him an hour later he'd blocked the call. He'd also ignored all Ryan's other calls, and then two days later Ryan had uploaded pictures of him and Devon drinking out of coconut shells.

 

\- - -

 

Stupid Ryan Lochte, Michael thinks as the phone rings and rings. The beep informs him to leave a message.

"Hey, it's me..." He mumbles, kicking at the drifts of snow around his feet, "I just wanted to say Merry Christmas and I miss you real bad...." Michael totally hates himself but whatever, all he can think about is all the Ryan Lochte goodness he is missing out on, "I'm sorry I got pissy-"

Hilary's phone buzzes and he sees Devon's number dialing in, so he forgets about the voicemail and switches over.

"Are you done screening my calls now?" It's Ryan, of course.

Michael feels just a little ashamed, "....Yes."

"I mean, you could have been dead."

Michael rolls his eyes, "Whatever, you know I'm at mom's. I bet you talked to her days ago."

Ryan's silence is the same as a yes. There's a pause and then he grumbles, "Whatever. Still."

"I'm sorry..." Michael mutters, kicking at more snow, "I miss you."

He can practically hear Ryan trying not to smile, "I hate you. I'm on a boat with my brother for Christmas. I hate you."

"I'll make it up to you."

"Impossible." Ryan seems to remember something because he suddenly snaps, "You better not be smoking fucking cigarettes."

Michael blushes and drops it into the snow, "No way."

"I gotta go," Ryan says, "It's my turn for the shower. Snapchat me a picture of your dick. Love you bye."

"Love you bye," Michael repeats, and then he hangs up the phone and slinks back inside.

Debbie and Hilary and Whitney are all in various corners of the kitchen, busy cooking. When he slides the door open they all look up at once, their faces expectant.

"He forgave me," Michael grumbles.

"Well is he going to come get you?" Debbie asks, turning back to her sizzling pan of bacon, "I should tell him you puked in my sink, then you'd really be getting it."

"You already told him I was smoking!"

Debbie shrugs, "It's none of your business what I tell my son-in-law. Besides, your lungs are going to shrivel."

"Whatever. Have you seen my phone?"

"It's plugged in over by the TV," Whitney replies, "Watch out for Jason's LEGOs, they're everywhere."

Michael weaves his way through the messy living room and screaming kids to grab his phone, then heads for the stairs. The minute he's alone in his room he slides his phone unlocked and that's when he sees it, one new snapchat. It's a picture of the cruise ship bathroom, which has a massive shower, and the caption bar reads: "C? U stupid so u missin out"

Michael sighs, staring at the image until the counter winds down and it disappears. Then he replies, snapping a pretty badly lit picture of his own frowning face.

The reply is instant, almost. Another shot of the bathroom tiles, this time with the caption: "I said dick pics ONLY"

Stupid Ryan Lochte, Michael thinks with a smile.


End file.
